The present invention relates generally to medical equipment, and more particularly, to unit dose, disposable syringes that are used for the delivery of fluids into an object, such as a human body or an animal""s body.
Disposable syringes are in widespread use for a number of different types of applications. For example, syringes are used not only to withdraw a fluid (e.g., blood) from a patient but also to administer a medicament to a patient. In the latter, a cap or the like is removed from the syringe and a unit does of the medicament is carefully measured and then injected or otherwise disposed within the syringe.
As technology advances, more and more sophisticated, automated systems are being developed for preparing and delivering medicaments by integrating a number of different stations, with one or more specific tasks being performed at each station. For example, one type of exemplary automated system operates as a syringe filling apparatus that receives user inputted information, such as the type of medicament, the volume of the medicament and any mixing instructions, etc. The system then uses this inputted information to disperse the correct medicament into the syringe up to the inputted volume.
In some instances, the medicament that is to be delivered to the patient includes more than one pharmaceutical substance. For example, the medicament can be a mixture of several components, such as several pharmaceutical substances.
By automating the medicament preparation process, increased production and efficiency are achieved. This results in reduced production costs and also permits the system to operate over any time period of a given day with only limited operator intervention for manual inspection to ensure proper operation is being achieved. Such a system finds particular utility in settings, such as large hospitals, including a large number of doses of medicaments have to be prepared daily. Traditionally, these doses have been prepared manually in what is an exacting but tedious responsibility for a highly skilled staff. In order to be valuable, automated systems must maintain the exacting standards set by medical regulatory bodies, while at the same time simplifying the overall process and reducing the time necessary for preparing the medicaments.
Because syringes are often used as the carrier means for transporting and delivering the medicament to the patient, it is advantageous for these automated systems to be tailored to accept syringes. There are a vast number of different types of syringes that are commercially available and some of those available may be improper for use with a given type of automated system. For example, the shape and/or dimensions of the syringe may prevent one syringe type from being used in a given automated system and can even cause damage due to jamming of the syringes as they are fed into the automated system.
What is needed in the art and has heretofore not been available is a system and method for automatically feeding a number of syringes into the automated system with the syringes being monitored and controlled so that only the proper syringe type is used and misalignment of the syringes is eliminated.
A bandolier of syringes for use in an automated syringe handling system is provided. The automated syringe handling system generally receives syringes and fills each syringe with a substance, such as a medicament. In one exemplary embodiment, the syringe handling system is a system that disperses one or more medicaments into the syringes in an automated manner.
According to one aspect of the present invention, a bandolier includes a web, e.g., a strip of transparent material, partially encapsulating bodies of syringes that are bound to the web at a prescribed interval. The bandolier includes a control feature disposed within the prescribed interval and between the syringes with the control feature being different from the surrounding web.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention, the control feature is used in combination with a detection system that is configured to detect the control feature. By incorporating the control feature into the bandolier structure, sufficient advance notification is provided indicating that the syringe bandolier is being misfed since the bandolier will not be advanced when the detection system fails to properly sense the control feature. A control system in accordance with this aspect of the invention includes an indexer configured to advance a syringe through the automated syringe handling system, a bandolier of syringes supplying syringes to the indexer, and a detection system including a detector positioned to detect the control feature on the bandolier and perform a prescribed operation in response to the detection or non-detection of the control feature.
In yet a further aspect of the invention, the use of the control feature can also ensure that only syringes of the correct type are used with the automated syringe handling system.
Further aspects and features of the exemplary syringe bandolier disclosed herein can be appreciated from the appended Figures and accompanying written description.